Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Today, Cave Girl stars in "The Man Who Served Death" from Thun'da #3 (1952); originally published by Magazine Enterprises.

Cave Girls' parents were murdered by savages in the jungle where they'd been living for several years while she was still a toddler. The infant then known as “Carol”, was carried off by an eagle, who took her far away beyond the mountains natives called The Barrier of the Moon, and deposited her in The Dawn Lands (where things were fairly primordial near the beginning of her career). Instead of feeding Carol to its young, the bird left her to be raised by Kattu, the wolf.

Under his tutelage, the youngster forgot the name "Carol", and soon responded to "Cave Girl", which is what the locals (referred to as "Hairy Men"; science knew their type as Neanderthals) called her, referring to her choice of abode. By studying the Hairy Men carefully, Cave Girl taught herself how to use the spear, the knife, and even the bow & arrow.

Eventually civilization breached the Barrier of the Moon, entered The Dawn Lands and transformed her feature into just another white woman traipsing through the jungle shtick. According to Don Markstein's Toonopedia, Gardner Fox wrote Magazine Enterprises "Cave Girl" feature until 1955, alongside Bob Powell’s lush artwork (which graces this issues cover too). The Catacombs is grateful to Don "Zu-Gogo" Falkos for providing the scans for this story. Note: The copyright for this issue, its contents and artwork belong to the original publisher and/or creators and is reproduced here solely for entertainment purposes.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Dragoncon, the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe begins in three days (September 3–6, 2010) in Atlanta, GA. If you're a sucker for celebrities from all types of genre television and film, you will be able to hobnob with cool guests from the worlds of Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, Lost In Space, True Blood, Heroes, Battlestar: Galactica, Farscape, I Dream of Jeannie, V, Eureka, Warehouse 13, Andromeda, Buck Rogers, Stargate SG1, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Torchwood, Quantum Leap, Scott Pilgrim, Superman Returns, Babylon 5, The X-Files, Halloween, Firefly, Beastmaster and The Incredible Hulk.

There will also be many more folks in these categories, plus science fiction, fantasy and horror authors out the wazoo. I'm heading that way with the usual gang of horny idiots, so word to the women of "Hotlanta", gird your loins.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

This next "Nedor-A-Weekend" story from Exciting Comics #46 (Apr.1946), has cool artwork by Ken Battefield. Since the Grand Comics Database doesn't have a title listed for this fine tale featuring The Scarab, I've decided to borrow a line from the opening splash page and call it "Resurrection of the Dead".

As a reminder, two more adventures will be forthcoming from this golden age classic starring the American Eagle and the Black Terror. For no particular reason today I've also included a single page text story called "Police Chief's Son" written by Johnson Craig.

Friday, August 27, 2010

A new Miss Universe was selected this week and the 2010 crown went to Miss Mexico Jimena Navarrete. Damn, I love beauty pageants and since I've got a soft spot for lovely Latinas, this choice gets my firmest support.

Oh, yeah!

Despite the brouhaha over the topless photos that this years girls took for promotion, really only a layer of body paint (let's pause for a moment to reflect on that), the end result justifies the means (and really why quibble about a little extra skin)?

Aaah, yes!

Jimena easily earns her place in the Catacombs (and my heart) as this weeks luscious "Gal" Friday.

Our pals over at Ain't It Cool News posted a link a couple of days ago that led to a 1987 memo which detailed the casting possibilities for the upcoming Star Trek: The Next Generation series, the first of several spin-offs of the classic original Gene Roddenberry space epic.

One thing that always bothered me was the casting of stentorian British thespian Patrick Stewart as the French Jean-Luc Picard. I mean why didn't they cast a French actor? Well it appears that they at least came close to doing so. Belgian actor Patrick Bauchau may not be familiar to many of you, but he has been a reliable presence on some good genre television shows such as The Pretender and Carnivale and he appeared as the main henchman to Christopher Walken's lead villain in Roger Moore's swansong as 007 in "A View To A Kill".

As peculiar as the casting of a British man as a Frenchman seemed to me twenty years ago, I have to say that I've always disliked some of the cast of ST:TNG, and particularly Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher. She was weak from start to finish in the role and I much preferred the Diana Muldaur second season fill-in role of Dr. Pulaski better. However, hold the fort, it seems that Logan's Run/An American Werewolf in London veteran and all-around 1970's cutie (& British) Jenny Agutter was considered for the part of Crusher. What were they thinking? I would have given it to her in a heartbeat.

Lt. Tasha Yar bought the farm very early in the first season of ST:TNG (thank god), basically nothing against Denise Crosby's turn as Yar, but that character sucked from the get go. Two Asian-American actresses that were originally up for the role of Yar would have been far superior - granted in my own opinion - but here in the Catacombs it's the only one that truly matters. Rosalind Chao and Julia Nickson would have lent that role a nice bit of exotic appeal and for my money, Lt. Yar could have then survived the goop-monsters attack that ultimately killed her off.

Now out of all the other possibilities mentioned in that AICN post (go read for yourselves), the only other one that really fascinates me would have been "seeing" Wesley Snipes as Geordi LaForge. Man wouldn't the chief engineer of the Enterprise 1701-D been one butt-kicking blind dude. That would have been all kinds of awesome (and I actually liked Levar Burton as Geordi).

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Here is an entertaining Cave Girl story from Magazine Enterprises series, Thun'da, King of the Congo #2 (1952) with beautiful artwork by the great Bob Powell. This is the first of several Cave Girl tales by Bob Powell that I'm going to send your way over the next week.

You'll notice that it is also a terrific late golden age crossover adventure starring Thun'da himself, and his trusty jungle mate, the lovely Pha. Because I like you guys so much, I'm throwing in the issues fine cover for free. Now that's friendly service, Catacombs-style!

The Catacombs is grateful to Don "Zu-Gogo" Falkos for providing the scans for this story. Note: The copyright for this issue, its contents and artwork belong to the original publisher and/or creators and is reproduced here solely for entertainment purposes.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Marga the Panther Woman gains increased strength from a serum that she is exposed to in today's golden age classic from Science Comics #5 (Jun.1940); "The Winged Beasts of Professor Meier" is credited to James T. Royal, and originally published by Fox Publications.

The Catacombs is grateful to Don "Zu-Gogo" Falkos for providing the scans for this story. Note: The copyright for this issue, its contents and artwork belong to the original publisher and/or creators and is reproduced here solely for entertainment purposes.

I had a great time today watching a streaming HD version of the 2009 Norwegian horror-comedy, Dead Snow on Netflix. Directed by Tommy Wirkola, the film stars Charlotte Frogner, Stig Frode Henriksen, Lasse Valdal, Ane Dahl Torp and Jenny Skavlan as medical students on Easter vacation who arrive at a small remote cabin near Øksfjord. The cabin is owned by Sara, Vegard's (Lasse Valdal) girlfriend, who was expected to join the group. Unaware of the grim fate that has already befallen her, the group begins to drink and party until a mysterious hiker (Bjørn Sundquist) arrives. He tells them the dark history of the region; during World War II, a force of Einsatzgruppe (SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings) abused and tortured the local people, typically by shooting Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other groups and political categories. Following an uprising by the locals, who ambushed and killed many of the Nazis, the survivors, including Colonel Herzog, were chased into the mountains, where it was assumed that they all were frozen to death. The hiker then leaves to continue on his way, and it soon becomes clear that the Nazis still linger albeit as undead, flesh-eating zombies.

The movie was nominated for four 2009 Scream Awards: Best Fight-to-the-Death Scene, Most Memorable Mutilation, Best Foreign Movie and Best Horror Movie. I couldn't tell you whether it won any of those awards, but it deserved every one of them.

If you have any regard for director Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films, which had to at least partially inspire this movie, then you've gotta take the time to see this flick. It's plenty of fun, it is a riotous gore fest and despite some less than perfect acting by some of the cast members, I enjoyed it from start to finish (even with the subtitles).

Oh, and definitely see it in HD. Beautiful scenery and buckets of blood look even better in High Definition. Recommended!

Monday, August 23, 2010

Do you ever just let your fingers do the walking and randomly troll the web for whatever you can find. I don't recall what I typed to find this image, but since the Fantastic Four series from Marvel Comics is about to launch a story where one of the members is expected to fall, I think that it may be time to consider replacements.

Now I'm not saying that Susan Richards (aka The Invisible Woman) is the doomed teamster, but for my money you just can't have enough blondes. This lovely lass was probably photo shopped by someone who wasn't satisfied with Jessica Alba's "so-so" portrayal of Sue in the two "not-quite-so-good" FF films of the last few years, and they wanted to field their own candidate for the role.

Who's to say that this gal can't have an entirely different set of powers (should the Invisible Woman survive) and join the FF for an all-new delightful foursome (with two hot blonds; three if you wanna count the Human Torch) , that is, once the ill-fated hero bites the big one.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

If you have college age children you know that moving them into school is basically hell on Earth. Nerves become frayed, tempers flare, tension headaches abound and once it has passed no amount of alcohol can remove the psychic damage sustained by your personal karma. This is my fourth year of this chaos and the final week proscrastination on the part of my daughter (and ex-wife) still lingers.

That was today, but "Nedor-A-Weekend" beckons regardless of any other "normal" Saturday havoc.

This jungle girl feature starring Kara Jungle Princess is taken from Exciting Comics #46 (Apr.1946); originally published by Better/Standard/Nedor and with art by Al Camy. Stories from this issue featuring TheBlack Terror, The Scarab and The American Eagle will be coming over the next few Saturdays.

How it all began ....

In 1933, publishers at Eastern Color Press, intent to make better use of their printing equipment (which frequently sat idle between jobs), came up with the idea of printing an 8-page comic section that could be folded down from the large broadsheet to a smaller 9-inch by 12-inch format. The result was the first modern comic book. Containing reprints of newspaper comic strips, this experimental comic book titled "Funnies On Parade" was given away for free. It proved so popular that the following year Eastern published "Famous Funnies" and took the bold step of selling the comic for ten cents through chain stores. The enterprise was a smashing success and Eastern began churning out numerous reprints on a monthly basis. Other publishers, eager to get in on the profits, jumped on the bandwagon and the comic book industry was born!